---
title: But a kiss in the dance was all the busy tongues could accuse him of. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But a kiss in the dance was all the busy tongues could accuse him of. Who acts: kiss. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IV. Babette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, IV. Babette, sentence 23

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But a kiss in the dance was all the busy tongues could accuse him of.

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**Who acts:** kiss · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IV. Babette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (kiss), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg27200:55:23
# text = But a kiss in the dance was all the busy tongues could accuse him of.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	kiss	kiss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	dance	dance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
8	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	11	det:predet	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	tongues	tongue	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	accuse	accuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | could · past | a kiss in the dance |  |  |  |  | accuse *property* | tree rules |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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